Mobius: The world sees noise out of D.C. as insignificant local news

Emerging markets fund manager Mark Mobius is optimistic that President Trump will be able to accomplish the big items on his economic agenda.

“Right now, as you know, there’s a lot of noise coming out of Washington,” Mobius, the executive chairman of Templeton Emerging Markets Group, told Yahoo Finance at the SALT Conference. “But if you look at a global perspective, people sort of dismiss a lot of that. They think it’s more local news and not much of great significance, and they’re focusing more on what policies is Trump going to be able to actually introduce and execute.”

In particular, investors like Mobius are focused on tax reform and trade reform.

“It won’t be easy. It will take time,” Mobius said, “But the appointment of a special prosecutor is a giant step in the right direction because once that investigation is finished, then we can move on to the next situation.”

Mobius also thinks that while the population is distracted with these events things will be able to get done.

“But you must remember that while this is going on, the staff in the White House are not sitting there doing nothing. They are continuing with their planning for tax reform, with their planning for infrastructure spending, with all these other things,” Mobius said. “This is all going in the background. And in fact, the situation is probably beneficial in the sense that people are focused on these other controversial topics, they’re not paying attention to the other important topics so that the people working on them can get the job done.”

There’s always the possibility that Trump won’t be able to enhance growth in America and that wouldn’t be good for the rest of the world. Still, Mobius remains optimistic.

“I think we are going to see tax reform. I think we are going to see trade reform, which will be good for the U.S. And I think you’re also going to see a change in the way government operates. I think you’re going to see [a] simplification of government processes.”

— Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.